Eyes as green as a fresh-pickled toad
by Wingsister Miri
Summary: It's Valentine's Day and Harry and Ginny have the night all to themselves. Harry has prepared a particularly romantic surprise for his wife...


Eyes as green as a fresh-pickled toad

A/N: His eyes are as green as a fresh-pickled toad,  
>His hair is as black as a blackboard.<br>I wish he was mine, he's really divine,  
>The hero who conquered the Dark Lord.<p>

The children were out of the house, finally.

It had taken them hours to get ready for the trip to Grandma Weasley's. First Albus had forgotten his plush rabbit, then they had had to deal with a minor tantrum from Lily after James had put frog spawn down her back. Nobody knew where he had gotten it, there was no pond either in their garden or in their immediate neighbourhood. Anyway, his parents had no idea when he could possibly have snuck out without them noticing.

Finally, after a quick ¨_Scourgify!_¨from Ginny, they had been ready to leave after all. A tearful goodbye had followed at the Burrow, then Ginny and Harry had been able to apparate back home to Godric's Hollow.

Their children were wonderful, all three of them, rowdy James, bookish Albus and little Lily Luna, her head always in the clouds, so much like her godmother and name-sake. However, the Potter children could also be quite a handful, and they liked to run their parents ragged. So it was a relief to get them out of their hair for just one day.

Even Teddy Lupin, a frequent and often unannounced visitor, had been told to stay away for the weekend.

Now they finally had their house all to themselves, ready for a romantic Valentine's Day.

They had cooked together, not pasta with tomato sauce for once and eaten by candle-light without getting apple sauce thrown at them.

A real, proper, romantic evening, all alone.

Ginny was just getting into their make-out session on the sofa, unafraid of their children or Teddy barging in, when Harry pulled away and told her to stay put.

¨I have a surprise for you. Just wait here, okay?¨ he said. She nodded and he kissed her on the tip of the nose before hurrying off up the stairs.

She sat up and reanged her blouse. She was slightly miffed at Harry for simply running off and leaving her like that, seeing as it was Valentine's Day and he was supposed to be ravishing her right now, but she was intriguenough at this surprise to put her judgement on hold. He was creating quite a racket upstairs, rummaging around in their bedroom and cursing softly.

Ginny laughed quitely. You could always hear where anyone was in their house, the parquet floors creaked something terrible whenever anyone walked across them. Their children still hadn't quite grasped just how Mum and Dad always knew where they happened to be, even when they thought they were being stealthy. She could hear Harry sneaking to the top of the stairs and saw him peeking over the bannister.

¨Close your eyes!¨ he called, ¨I'm coming down!¨

She closed her eyes obediently, wondering what in the world he could be up to.

She could feel the shift in the air as he closed the distance between them. The floor creaked as he kneeled down in front of her. Anticipation rose in Ginny.

But then he began to ... sing. If it could be called singing.

He plonked the strings on a guitar and was wailing terrible, terrible lyrics.

¨Her eyes are as brown as delicious chololate,

Her hair is as red as hottest fire.

I love her it's true, without her I'm blue,

My lady, my love, my heart's true desire.¨

Ginny felt the heat rush to her face as she blushed fiercely. She was sure her face must be getting as red as her hair right about now. She was ever so slightly mortified, but she was also fighting the urge to burst out laughing.

She instantly flashed back to the disastrous Valentine's Day during her first year at Hogwarts when Professor Lockhart had sent around those terrible cupid-dwarves. She had sent Harry an equally terrible sung Valentine's Day poem. Apparently, he was now getting his revenge, more than a decade and a half later.

When he had finished singing and gotten back up, he grinned hugely at Ginny, mirth dancing in his bright green eyes.

Ginny could no longer hold it all in: She burst out laughing, tears streaming from her eyes, holding her stomach. Harry joined right in, holding on to her shoulders to keep himself from falling over.

After they had laughed themselves out, relapsing several time as one of them broke out in new peals of laughter, spurred on by the other, they sat together on the sofa to catch their breaths. Harry leaned over and wiped one last tear of laughter from the corner of Ginny's eye, then looked at her seriously.

¨That was majorly romantic, right? I knew you would appreciate my poetic efforts.¨

¨That was incredibly awful¨, she answered, ¨how in the world did you come up with that?¨

He looked slightly sheepish. ¨Ron and Hermione helped me¨, he admitted, ¨we had a great brain-storming session. We may have been slightly drunk...¨

¨Aaah, now I understand. Well, at least you have that excuse. When I did it in first year, I was painfully sober, and soooo in love with the great Harry Potter. As you can see, I totally got over that. Did you know, Luna actually helped me with that little love-song? You're lucky it was ¨green as a fresh-pickled toad¨ and not ¨gelatinous orbs like a freshwater-plimpy, except green instead of blue¨. That would have been even harder to sing...¨

Harry looked skeptical. ¨Seriously? Luna helped you? I guess it could have been much stranger than it was... Never have I ever been that acutely embarassed ever before or again.¨ He grinned.

¨Yeah, I guess I was lucky you'd forgotten by fifth year. Otherwise you might never have married me at all! Imagine kissing me while thinking about that little incident.¨

¨I'd rather not¨, he answered, shuddering. ¨But it's not like I wasn't an absolute embarassment to you on a couple of occasions. I remember a first dinner at the Burrow as your official post-war boyfriend...¨

¨That so wasn't your fault! I don't blame you at all, that was all on Ron and Charlie.¨ She snuggled up to her husband, resting her head on his shoulder contentedly. ¨You know, I guess we're lucky we found someone equally as ridiculous as the other. I can't really imagine having this much fun with anyone else I might have married.¨

¨Oh yeah? Were there a lot of candidates?¨ He cocked an eyebrow mischievously.

¨Well, I've always been partial to Professor Snape, myself. Or maybe I could hit up Malfoy...¨

¨Oh, gross! Now I'm going to have that mental image burned into my brain forever. Did you really have to say that?¨

Ginny couldn't help herself, she burst out laughing again at the disgusted, outraged expression of Harry's face. She swung her legs over his lap and hugged him closer. ¨You know,¨ she whispered into his ear, a smile playing around her lips, ¨I'm sure I can make you forget about that somehow.¨

¨Finally,¨ he grinned, ¨just what I wanted to hear from my lovely wife on Valentine's Day... ¨

He threw the giggling Ginny over his shoulder and carried her up the stairs towards the bedroom, humming about delicious chocolate and hair as red as flame.

A/N: The ridiculous ideas you come up with at three in the morning...

I know the poem is terrible, it's meant to be, but at least I did my best matching the narrative structure and rhyme scheme of the poem.


End file.
